Showing posts with label Habeas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Habeas. Show all posts

Seventh Circuit: Volney McGhee v. Cameron Watson

Where ineffective assistance at trial isn't used to establish ineffective assistance on direct review, state habeas petition for ineffective assistance on direct review does not exhaust the ineffective assistance at trial for subsequent federal habeas review.

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2018/D08-17/C:15-3881:J:Wood:con:T:fnOp:N:2203949:S:0

Sixth Circuit: Ian Davis v. Margaret Bradshaw

Recantation of trial witness insufficiently credible to trigger the actual-innocence exception to the statutory limitation on Habeas petitions.

http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0172p-06.pdf

Sixth Circuit: Kurt Harrington v. J. Ray Ormond

Habeas challenge arising from Supreme Court holding narrowing the causation element of the offense can proceed to argument on the question of retroactivity absent explicit retroactivity assertion by the Supreme Court where other circuits have recognized the ruling as retroactive.

http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0165p-06.pdf


Third Circuit: US v. Ronald Peppers

ACCA residual clause minimum Habeas showing is a mere possibility that the sentencing court acted under that section of the law.

Plea deal did not waive Habeas challenge to sentence, so long as the Habeas minimum showing is met, as parties can't stipulate to a sentence in excess of legal limits.

So long as there is a valid petition arising from a Supreme Court holding made retroactive to cases on collateral review, non-retroactive cases decided in the interval can cited to describe the current state of the law.

Under categorical review, state robbery statute isn't a valid predicate; petitioner did not brief whether state burglary statute is covered under the elements clause of the law; challenge to that predicate conviction is therefore waived.

Sixth Circuit: Jamal Thomas v. George Stephenson

Ambiguity in state statute of Assault with Intent to Kill that seems to allow conviction for uncharged conduct, i.e., a potential future deadly assault rather than the charged non-deadly assault is, at most, an error of state law that does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation.

Dissent: Licit conviction for a crime that the deft did not commit rises to the level of extreme malfunction of the state criminal justice system.

http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0161p-06.pdf

First Circuit: US v. Rose

 A decision that is cited in another opinion before being vacated as moot remains binding circuit precedent.

As recklessness could possibly suffice for a conviction requiring wantoness, the predicate violent felony is not in fact a predicate.

Challenging prejudice on appeal does not preserve a pro forma argument against cause.

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/17-1059P-01A.pdf

Ninth Circuit: US v Buenrostro

As a Presidential commutation is simply a mitigation of punishment, it does not set aside the initial judicial sentence, and therefore does not establish separate grounds for a habeas petition; a petition is therefore considered a second or successive challenge to the initial judicial sentence.  Similarly, the commutation cannot shift the sentence from one based on a statutory minimum to one based on a gudelines range,  making the sentence susceptible to a challenge based on a subsequent revision of the guidelines.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/07/13/16-10499.pdf


Sixth Circuit: Tyganda Gilmore v. David Ebbert

A prisoner seeking habeas relief from an unlawful detainer must seek habeas against the jurisdiction holding the detainer against his or her future release, not the jurisdiction of present incarceration.

Third Circuit: Seifullah Abdul-Salaam v. Secretary Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

As there was no indication that pursuing expert mitigation testimony in the penalty phase would cause conflicting narratives or a relitigation of the guilt phase, omitting to investigate the potential mitigation produced ineffective assistance of counsel; state appellate review to the contrary was unreasonable.

Where the state courts explicitly do not reach consideration of the prejudice arising from the ineffective assistance, federal habeas approaches the question de novo.

District court erred in determining that the mitigation would have been cumulative in light of the guilt-phase evidence; as the potential mitigation was qualitatively different, it is likely that at least one juror would have been swayed by a fundamentally different presentation in the penalty phase.

http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/149001p.pdf


Ninth Circuit: White v. Ryan

State habeas denial was contrary to and an unreasonable application of the federal law governing ineffective assistance of counsel claims as to mitigation and aggravating factors, since it considered whether the specific court that had heard the case would have been prejudiced, rather than a neutral and objective court considered abstractly, and also did not weigh the cumulative effect of the mitigation that had been omitted.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/07/11/15-99011.pdf

Fifth Circuit: Raquel Hinojosa v. Petra Horn, et al

Since onetime-citizens who are abroad who have their passports revoked have a right under the statute to petition the Secretary of State for permission to present themselves at a port of entry, they do not have a right to challenge the revocation directly as an administrative action.

This petition process must be exhausted prior to seeking habeas relief; although it does not directly remedy the question of the passport, it allows the grounds for the revocation of the passport to be challenged.

Plaintiff at port of entry cannot seek relief under the statute by declaratory judgment, as statute limits that relief to those inside the US.

Plaintiff who claims to be a citizen, but is denied entry on the grounds that he or she is not a citizen, does not have standing to facially challenge a law requiring all citizens to carry a passport when entering or leaving the country, as it doesn't presently apply to them.

http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/17/17-40077-CV0.pdf


Fifth Circuit: William Erickson v. Lorie Davis, Director

State court judgment became final and the clock for federal habeas began to run after the period for challenging the state appellate decision in the Supreme Court ran out, not after the state judgment on remand became final.

Second Circuit: Massey v. United States

Habeas petition is untimely when petitioner was sentenced under an earlier-abrogated provision of the law that established certain crimes as predicate convictions based on the use of force, but petitions for relief under a subsequent holding of the Supreme Court as to the residual clause of the same law, since only the latter announced a substantive change in the law.

http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/d97b88cf-c722-4c12-a6fc-67b8ddb371fe/1/doc/17-1676_opn.pdf#xml=http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/d97b88cf-c722-4c12-a6fc-67b8ddb371fe/1/hilite/

Tenth Circuit: United States v. Garcia-Herrera

After entry of judgment, a court has no jurisdiction over a subsequent motion by a deft to compel former counsel to produce files that would aid in his defense.

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/17/17-6209.pdf

Ninth Circuit: Tamplin v. Muniz

Petitioner's desire to represent himself was sufficiently unequivocal in rejecting all public defenders and stating that he couldn't afford private counsel.  State Habeas denial grounded on the timeliness of the request for self representation was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of federal constitutional law, as there was a clear right to self-representation, since the request was made some weeks before trial.  Appellate counsel provided ineffective assistance, as second pro-se request hadn't been included in the appellate record.

Dissent: "Weeks before trial" is too vague to say that no reasonable jurist could have denied the habeas.  Brief appearance of private counsel presented timing problems and put into question the unequivocal nature of the request.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/07/06/16-15832.pdf

DC Circuit: USA v. Carlos Aguiar

Insufficient prejudice from closing of voir dire to justify federal habeas.

Government's intent to increase the charges to a potential life sentence were clear and easily determined; a claim of ineffective assistance based on not advising the deft of this therefore justifies a hearing.

Partial dissent: no contemporaneous evidence that deft would have accepted the plea.

Tenth Circuit: Underwood v. Royal

No ineffective assistance in not presenting forensic evidence, as omission of gruesome details might have been a sound trial strategy.

Prosecutor's remarks in closing about condition of victim did not unduly prejudice the verdict.

Approved instructions did not prejudicially suggest restrictions on mitigating circumstances.

Admission of victim's parents sentencing recommendations cannot in itself rise to structural error, and was not an error in the aggregate; such muted, one-off pleas do not warrant the writ.

State appellate decision that the jury did not need to find beyond a reasonable doubt that aggravating circumstances outweighed mitigating ones was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/16/16-6262.pdf


Tenth Circuit: Pavatt v. Royal

Amended panel opinion after denial of en banc.

No prejudice from ineffective assistance claim based on admission of victim photos, as objection would have been useless under res judicata -- similar photos previously held admissible in another case.

Aggravating circumstance of victim suffering was imposed using an unconstitutionally broad standard for potential suffering, state habeas to contrary was an unreasonable application of the law.

Dissent:

Ineffective assistance claims generally procedurally barred, as state provided time to raise them 

A reasonable finder of fact might have determined that victim suffered, regardless of how broad the potential application of the standard might be.

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/14/14-6117.pdf

Tenth Circuit: Barton v. Hunter

As petitioner is not in custody, denial of parental custody does not state a claim for Habeas relief under the statute.

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/18/18-5016.pdf


Eighth Circuit: Santos Rosales-Martinez v. Nick Ludwick

State court's re-imposition of limits on the confrontation of a witness during retrial after simply adopting the findings of the previous proceeding is not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of federal law on the subject.

http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/18/06/171910P.pdf